CHOULO19

This is a good loan for him if he can stay fit and do well. It could well salvage his Chelsea career turn around that ship which looked like it has already sailed...

Oh GOD! "EL NINO"??! WHY?!! Please not again!

To be fair, Iva often does very well in big matches, even defensively. He's usually more focused and more restricted in his runs. It's usually the smaller teams with the pacy wingers that he has trouble with.

I think Luis should obviously go and Iva should replace Cahill at CB. Then of course we need to sign at least two fullbacks now that Ake is obviously not going to be given a chance to be backup at LB. I don't mind Azpi staying on the left. Obviously he offers more in attack on the right but I tend to find that because of the way he defends, he's a better 1vs1 defender on the left than he is on the right.

He played 26 matches this season starting 20 of them. This isn't a KDB case. In those matches he had a run of 5 or 6 matches back to back when Azpi was suspended and Luis started in all three EPL matches as well as the CL and cup matches between them. He was just no where near as good as Cesar. The "he was key for Atletico" excuse is no longer valid as well. You can give him the benefit of the doubt for a few months but he's had a full season where he was given more than a fair chance to prove himself and has failed. I think Luis next to Terry is bad idea. JT simply doesn't have the pace to cover for him and is never comfortable when he's drown out to the wing. In fact you can see that in the games that Luis did start this season. Suddenly our impermeable left side becomes the more vulnerable one. Listen, I'm no big fan on Iva at RB. He's a CB having to be played out of position and that's never going to change. But Jose wants at least 3 of his back 4 to be physically strong and good in the air, and Iva's belief that he is actually a striker does often give the opposition something to think about because they have an extra body to deal with. For me, this season has proved that Jose was right all along and that Iva-Azpi are our best fullbacks.

Iva is always targeted by opposition teams because his positioning and because he plays on the side of the weakest link in our defense: Cahill. Opposition always try to go down our right side when they can. Luis wasn't a starter for us and he got overpowered regularly when he played. If he were a starter he would no doubt be targeted by the opposition as well. Imagine Luis coming up against someone physical like Moses for example. He'd brush him out of the way every time.

They didn't. Juve did not bid 12m for Oscar. THEY DID NOT! It was the MIrror FFS! If everything in the Mirror is 'fact' now we'd have bought half the players in Europe, sold them and then bought them back again...and that's before the window even opens! People will really cling to anything no matter how reliable if it backs their opinion.

It's not that hard to be one of our best fullbacks. We only have 3 of them. So basically he just needs to offer more than Luis, which I think he does... Oh, you and your dirty mind

Funny how the people who have been calling him shit for forever now think he's worth a fortune. Well, make up your mind! Which is it?! LOL Anyway, all those stories are very clearly fake. We're not selling Oscar this summer, it's just not happening and Juve know that now. They just spent 18m on Zaza so if they were bidding for Oscar they certainly would have made a much higher bid than 12m but they aren't because they know that Chelsea won't sell regardless of the price.

He's an excellent player. Good technique, excellent passing. Yeah, he's more of a right winger than an out and out striker. Reminds me a lot of Schurrle but lacks the work rate off the ball. But I just think he maybe still a bit too young to move to a club like Chelsea. No idea why Juve let him go, though. Probably something to do with internal club politics or personal issues with the player himself. As I write this I get a notification that Juve just confirmed the signing of Zaza for 18m Euros. Berardi has a MUCH higher ceiling.

That's a very good question.....@Jim?

Well that's not what you said and what I was trying to debate with that stat. You were shocked that anyone would consider Luis less effective offensively than Iva and Azpi. The stat was to show that is a very normal opinion regardless of whether you agree or not. As for the points you raised, yes, obviously Luis has better technique than both. That's not really debatable. He's also a better passer than both. But in terms of actual offensive ability and effectiveness in the final third, I saw nothing of him this season to suggest that he's as good as Iva or even Azpi. Luis was given every chance to prove himself as a deserved starter; more than practically any player that comes to Chelsea, but he failed. He had his biggest chance when Azpi was suspended and he started 6 consecutive games and even though Luis was playing poorly in the league he retained his place for the CL matches and Azpi did not play. That period did nothing but highlight what a step down he was from Azpi. PS: What the hell is "superior composure in tight spaces"?!

This is pretty awesome:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he had zero assists in his 26 appearances for us. Azpi had 3 assists just in the league and Iva something like 5 or 6. What exactly is so amazing about saying that Iva and Azpi are more effective in attack than Luis?

:lol: Thanks for making me burst into laughter at work!

Here's a wacky idea that apparently no one has thought of yet: What if the reason we don't move Azpi back to RB and start Luis at LB is because Luis is no where near as good as either Azpi or Iva?! Even compared to Iva with all his brain-farts, his inability to stop crosses and his often non-existing sense of tracking back, Iva is still a more solid and reliable defender who is difficult to beat 1vs1 and is a major asset on set-pieces. Iva also offers A LOT more when he goes forward. Actually, apart from his ability to cross from deep, I've found that Luis's attacking abilities are mostly imagined. I often find that even Azpi in a couple of forward runs per game can do more damage than 10 runs Luis does. So yeah...I think that Iva and Azpi start because they are our best two fullbacks...Too obvious to be true?

Because Zouma is a CB and naturally doesn't have the technical abilities nor the positional awareness to play in midfield. He can come on with 10 minutes to go to win headers in midfield and around the box, but he can't play as a midfielder.

I thought he said something like that but didn't make sense to me

Here: It was dramatic in the sense that it would have been the last kick of the ball had it gone in, but it's not a "horrible miss" as the title suggests, Lavezzi over-hits the pass and Higuain just couldn't get there quick enough. His penalty was indeed horrible but as you said, why in the world did they pick him with his pen record?

It wasn't even a 'sitter' it was a very difficult angle and he was sliding in at speed. Pretty difficult to control where the ball ends up. But social media 'trends' practically decide the popular opinions in football...

For me, Willian was on par or at least very close to Hazard in the final third of the season. For some reason, it's very easy to forget that....

I have absolutely no idea what he's trying to say. Not sure that's even 'Arabic'!

Very happy for Chile. Would have been incredibly boring if Argentina had won it.

What a frantic start! Looks set to be some game.

Shut up, whore, I'm trying to defend your honor!